These emails provide opportunity for your organization to be more informed about the issues facing our city and involved in addressing them in partnership with others.

Get to Know Teen Challenge

Seeing, Learning from and Serving the Poor Among us

Don't Walk By with the Rescue Alliance

Each February, Don't Walk By (DWB) mobilizes over 1,000 volunteers to engage our neighbors in need and invite them to receive compassionate care and opportunities to find an alternative life. Last year, across four weeks of outreach and service to our homeless neighbors, over 1,100 volunteers engaged more than 800 individuals across the city and hosted 600 at our anchor church locations!

Don't Walk By is an incredible opportunity for us to engage with our neighbors and encourage our organizations to care compassionately.
DWB 2018 will take place across the four Saturdays of February at four different Anchor Church locations. Please click HERE to sign up for one of the locations set for this year

Feb 3 - Downtown Outreach at NY Chinese Alliance Church
Feb 10 - Westside Outreach at Calvary Baptist Church
Feb 17 - Eastside Outreach at Fifth Ave Presbyterian Church
Feb 24 - Uptown Outreach at Salvation Army Harlem Temple Corps

You can also sign up for the Rescue Alliance Newsletter and get valuable information, resources and tools for serving those in need around us all year. Here's a snippet of their recent edition

"Do people choose to be homeless?" It's a question Josiah Haken, VP of Outreach Operations at NYC Relief, recently asked. His answer may surprise you.
Steven Banks, commissioner of DSS/DHS, says there are four steps to addressing homelessness. Do you agree with his assessment?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does this picture say to you?
According to recent interviews with homeless youth:
- in 5 of the youth were victims of sex trafficking
- 14% exchanged sex to pay for basic needs
- 58% of those trafficked did not have a caring adult in their loves
- 95% had a history of child abuse, with nearly 50% reporting sex abuse
- 67% percent of those trafficked did not graduate from high school

Helping the Homeless be Known

Known is back! Winter is right around the corner and many of us have already started wearing our winter coats and thick sweaters. As we prepare for a cold winter it's hard not to think about those 62,000 New Yorkers who are homeless, many of which are families with children. For some staying warm is a daily battle whether there sleeping on the streets or in a homeless shelter, it can be easy to lose hope. Known was created to enage people with purposeful appararel with the truth that they are known. This winter we seek to clothe people in need with a warm weather resistant “I am Known” hoodie and remind them that they are are not forgotten but indeed known and loved by God. When you buy a known hoodie, you help us clothe someone in need here in New York city. These hoodies are extremely warm and make great Christmas presents. Last year we clothed over 700 people and this year we would like to reach more.

Purchase your hoodie today!

Training and Learning Opportunities

Mental health is one of the nation’s most pressing societal issues. Every year, one in five New Yorkers will experience a range of mental health challenges, from depression and anxiety to PTSD and schizophrenia. Every day, people deemed mentally ill are jailed against their will, denied due process in the justice system, and priced out of access to quality treatment. New York City is taking steps towards changing the culture and treatment around mental health, yet we still see persistent discrimination and stigma, especially in Brooklyn's communities of color.

Join BRIC TV on December 13th as we bring together the voices of those who struggle with mental health, those who treat mental illness, and those on the front lines of securing mental health as a civil right for all. The event kicks of with a special performance by: The Brooklyn Poetry Slam Team.

Panel includes

Michaela angela Davis - Activist & CNN Contributor
Dr. Maysa Akbar - Yale Child Psychologist and author “Urban Trauma: A Legacy of Racism”
Orlando Mendoza - Director of Mental Health Division at Brooklyn Community Services
Beth Haroules - Civil Rights Attorney New York Civil Liberties Union
Jonah Bossewitch - PHD Mental Health Advocate, The Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA )
Akeem Browder - Executive Director of the Kalief Browder Foundation

Come early, grab a drink and catch a screening of The Marshall Project’s We are Witnesses , a series of powerful short films of people impacted by mental health and the criminal justice system.

What is Restorative Justice?

Through these videos, and Restoratives Justice Initiative's YouTube channel you can learn more about this valuable and necessary teaching, training and resource and how to bring it to your organization including an upcoming school circles training December 12th.

Restorative Justice Initiative interviewed New York City-based restorative justice practitioners and advocates. We asked them to define restorative justice in two sentences or less.

Carroll Gardens Community Association

Doing incredible work in organizing in and around the Carroll Gardens neighborhood, serving particularly the immigrant and working poor communities there, CGCA recently partnered with the Center for Family Life to host and help the formation of a new cleaning cooperative, Brightly Carroll Gardens!
Click here to learn more and see photos from their kick off weekend. You can also sign up for their newsletter and find out more about the great work they are doing HERE

If you would like your organization or event to be promoted through these Trellis updates, please do contact us. These emails beyond passing along information provide opportunity for building partnerships with other organizations working to serve, support and blessing their communities.